“Are there no locks in this House? Why are you in my room? What time is it?” Lenna demanded. After rubbing her eyes and examining him under the brighter golden sparks, she added, “Why are you so angry? What happened? Stop looking at me like that and answer, will you?”
“If you shut your pretty mouth up and give me a fucking chance, I may.” He got closer to her, his hand pushing her chin upwards until he stared down at her. It had been so long since he had towered above her while she laid down on a bed. “This ismyHouse. I can go wherever I want, whenever I want, to do whatever I want. No locks, no chains, no barriers.” His eyes lowered to her breasts, and he pushed down her black lingerie shortie, exposing a peaked nipple and pinching it as she gasped. “Why were you calling me?”
Her eyes widened as her eyebrows shot to the ceiling. “I wasn’t—fuck. It was just—Excuse me, that’s my nipple.”
“They’re mine to play with, sweet fire.” He pinched her other nipple at the same time, making her back arch. “Why did you call me in the middle of the night?”
“It was a nightmare.”
“Am I in your nightmares?”
He very much had not been in it, even if his sparks had, which meant she somehow must have been screaming his name unconsciously, which waswayworse. She had been trying to wake from there, she had been trying to escape from the East Bird’s grip, by calling his name, by begging for his help without even knowing it.Definitelyworse than him being in the actual nightmare. She put her sass night-mask on before he could realise.
She winked at him as she side-smiled. “I have nightmares about strangers coming in the middle of the night and pinching my nipples.”
Jake clicked his tongue as his silver eyes darkened a tone. “I am nostranger. I am yourlover. You’re only allowed to have nightmares about me, and these,” he pinched them tighter, “are mine. If another hand dares touch your precious body, I’ll break every single one of its twenty-seven bones.”
The East Cardinal very much did not agree with the Jake-nightmare clause. Lenna pressed her lips together as her jaw clenched. “My lover cannot love me, but he can break bones possessively.”
“I can break much more than bones,” he said, tracing his nose up her throat.
She nodded slowly as her own thoughts echoed in her mind.Hearts. You can break hearts, Jake.
“Trust the Harming Ruler to be highly skilled at breaking,” she said instead.
“Who else was in the nightmare?” he asked, his jaw clenching harder, as he released the pinch of his fingers to stroke the skin of her breasts, pulled the clothes over them and let his hands trail down her waist softly.
“Magical creatures and lots of sparks.” She looked around, pointing at his still-inundating navy sparks sea filling her room. Sweet Bitch was bouncing a navy spark between her paws, tryingto catch it with her golden mouth but every time missing. “Not that different from this exhibition.” Except it had been full of golden sparks, and the navy ones were precious, disappearing, escaping from her grasp. “I have a question.”
Jake lifted an eyebrow. “I have more than one.”
And here was her leverage. “I said it first. You answer three truthfully, I will answer three truthfully. Deal?”
He extended his hand in front of her, and she placed her palm against his, interlacing their fingers and letting both their golden and navy inks mark each other in a truth-binding oath before they both let go.
“Truthfully,” he repeated, and she nodded. “Go ahead,” he said as his chin dipped in agreement.
“The people you wanted to get rid of because they were useless politically—you said the House disposed of them. How?”
“I think the House burned them down,” he said briefly.
Lenna smiled as a rush of excitement built up in her chest as her lungs expanded. “Where?”
“I guessed on the walls of my office, because it smelled like rancid feathers for days, but I didn’t really ask.”
Lenna’s jaw dropped as she covered her wide-open mouth with both hands. Of fucking course the Ruining Flame had been in front of her eyes since day one. She almost burned herself in it more than once. By the time she collected her surprised shit together, he had asked his first question.
His chin tilted upward before he shot it. “Why did you ask those two questions?”
“I have been searching for a magical place linked to the East Cardinal and the East House, important enough for the Cardinal Queen to hide a piece of her own heart in it. I believe I have now found it. Thank you.” She blew him a kiss.
He bowed without removing his piercing stare from her eyes. “That was one of your missions here, then. What was the other?”
Lenna crossed her arms in front of her chest as she inhaled deeply, clenching her jaw so hard it hurt. His navy ink still trailed around her fingers, palm and wrists, smoothly but incessantly, the oath demanding the truth. She looked at the sparks behind him while she replied, because looking at him while she admitted her purpose and her failure was too painful.
“Finding a way for you to love again,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the last two words.
Jake’s whole body tensed, and Lenna had a feeling his breathing had sped up, but perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps it was her own breathing along with her heartbeat, losing control. Before Lenna could look at him in the eyes again, she saw goosebumps up his arms, trailing from his muscled wrists up to where his skin disappeared under his sleeves.
